‍

This one is for the nerds.

Jenny Wall, a former board member at GEMA predecessor Promax, has been leading entertainment marketing teams for most of her 30-year career, including at such places as HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Spotify and Nickelodeon. Two and a half years ago, she was named chief marketing officer at VideoAmp, an upstart measurement company that measures the output of entertainment companies, including their marketing. 

The business of measuring media is still largely handled by Nielsen, which has been almost the only game in town for the past 100 years. Since the streaming era began in earnest, technologies have emerged that allow content providers to collect viewer data via set-top boxes and smart televisions, and moves have been made to uproot Nielsen from its single-provider status. Wall has thoughts about how and when that needs to be done. (Short answer: now.)

Wall joined Spotlight to talk about the business of entertainment marketing from the perspective of measurement and currency – a fascinating and complex place in which to be. 

An edited version of the conversation with Wall follows. 

Spotlight: It’s interesting how you have gone from leading marketing teams at such  entertainment platforms at HBO, Hulu, Gimlet/Spotify and Nickelodeon to now being the CMO of a company that measures those platforms. The way you market entertainment has to be much different from the way you market measurement. How has that transition been for you? 

‍Jenny Wall, CMO, VideoAmp: One of the reasons I'm here is that as a CMO who has bought a lot  of media and developed a lot of creative over the past 30 years, I was always on the hot seat with questions like ‘how much did you spend’ and ‘did you get a return on that?’ CFOs often don’t fully understand the measurement space but they are always looking for ways to cut the budget. As a CMO, it’s imperative to show that you are a revenue generator rather than a cost center. 

I think the only way to truly measure success is by having the right tools to show that your efforts led to a tangible outcome -- whether that’s a subscription, customer retention, an upsell, or a product sale. VideoAmp provides those tools.

The industry is clearly asking for multiple currencies and measurement options. It's imperative that we deliver on that need. Offering choice not only introduces pricing flexibility for companies working with measurement providers like us and Nielsen, but it also fuels innovation across the board. Multiple currencies create a more competitive, dynamic environment -- one that ultimately benefits both buyers and sellers.

I also want to help CMOs keep their jobs longer and to help provide them with the right tools to do so. And it’s not just CMOs, it’s also agencies who are buying media. We’re not here to compete with media agencies. We’re here to try to bridge and connect some of these dots with fewer pieces so our clients can, in real time, figure out whether the things you are doing are working. 

The other reason I am here is because Peter Liguori, who's our executive chairman and was my boss at HBO in the ‘90s, inspired me and got me excited to take on this monumental challenge. My first response was ‘why would I go to an ad tech company?’ But he feels the same way I do about a need for change and for setting a higher standard for measurement. He’s a marketer at heart. 

I have been lucky enough in my career that everywhere I've been, I've felt I made some sort of a cultural impact that's good for the industry, but also has really made me feel good. And so I thought, ‘well, why not join and see if I can help other marketers and also help shift this industry to where it actually needs to go?’

The industry right now is a little complacent, and it's just amazing to me. Everyone says they want change, and options, but they also feel stuck with the old systems. I talk about it a lot as a David and Goliath situation  and  if I can help the industry understand the measurement marketplace better and give them the tools that they need, I feel like that would be good for our industry.

‍Spotlight: What does being CMO of VideoAmp entail? 

‍Wall: As CMO of VideoAmp, I help ensure that we are effectively positioning our offering and message in the marketplace. It's got to be very hard hitting, break through and differentiate us while remaining simple and relatable. I have a very small  team and not a lot of money so it's a very scrappy job, which is great. I love getting my hands dirty and being involved in all parts of the process. 

It’s about looking like a tech-forward company versus a horse and buggy company. You'll see that in a lot of our creative executions and in the way that we talk. We try to disrupt everywhere we go. For example, we did our Vampfront [VideoAmp’s upfront] at a museum, and it was an immersive mix of data and art. 

I also help lead a brand direct group internally. I have a very small tiger team and we work directly with brands. We work directly with the advertising holding companies that work with brands, but the brand-direct relationship is also very important. I am lucky enough to know a lot of CMOs and I want to help them too. 

Finally, I oversee our sales material, press, social, paid media, CRM and events. It’s a daunting job, I’m not going to lie. I do miss making trailers and posters and marketing plans but I also enjoy taking something that can be very boring, like currency, and turning it into something that's interesting, digestible and exciting.

‍Spotlight: Would you say most of your marketing efforts for VideoAmp are strictly business to business? 

‍Wall: It is business to business. But in my mind, you're always talking to a person. I don't like to look at it as though I'm selling a product. I'm selling a solution to people who run media investment at the holding companies or brands. We are talking to people that run advanced audiences. We are talking to media buyers on the brand side, chief marketing officers, research and insights people. Because we work both on the sell side and the buy side, we need to know how to talk to both sides of the house. And they are all people. So I really see this as business to consumer.

‍Spotlight: Do you think we will ever get back to a world in which there is transparency around media performance, like we used to have with Nielsen overnights, for example? 

‍Wall:  Transparency is absolutely essential. At VideoAmp, we are both highly transparent and privacy safe. I do believe we're moving toward a future where access to performance insights won’t be limited to those with an invite to the upfronts.

As streaming platforms compete for ad dollars, transparency will become a necessity, not a luxury. We’re already seeing some of the traditional "walled gardens" begin to open up. Companies are recognizing the power of their own first-party data, but they're also coming to terms with the fact that grading their own homework won’t serve them – or their advertisers – well in the long run.

‍Spotlight: You talked about living in a multi-currency world earlier. I feel like a couple of years ago there was a big industry push for that but it has since faded. Do you think a multi-currency world is already here or is that truly where things are headed? If that’s where things are headed, how long do you think it will be before we’ll actually be living in it?

‍Wall: I think it is Nielsen and us in the pole position. That's my opinion and that's also what I’m hearing from the industry. It's not to dismiss anyone else, but from a multi-currency perspective, I think it is us and Nielsen right now. And percentage-wise, it is still vastly with Nielsen. I don't think Nielsen's going to go away, and I don't think Nielsen should go away. We must have a multi-currency world in order to have price flexibility and innovation. It’s imperative. 

I don’t think the push has faded in the least and we do live in a multi-currency world, it's just not moving at the pace that it should. It needs to grow exponentially over the next five years in order to make sure that it sticks. My guess and maybe my hope, is that within two years – and at the latest, five years –  we will all be transacting in a multi-currency world. It has to happen for our industry to survive.

‍Spotlight: Do you think we will move off of buying tonnage-based advertising, such as cost-per-thousand, and move more toward cost-per-outcome? 

‍Wall: We 100% support outcome-based buying, and we have a lot of clients who operate that way. That's one of the measurement reports that we provide, but it all depends on what our client’s KPIs are. For insurance companies, for example, their KPI might be website visits. And then you've got people like Pepsi who want to know actual sales.

With regard to tonnage, I am amazed that so many people still buy so much media on demo and reach and frequency. We have the ability to target the right  people and achieve higher sales for less money. If you can tie an increase in reach to the right audience to a decrease in CPMs and still see an increase in sales, why wouldn’t you invest more in that? 

‍Spotlight: Does VideoAmp’s service allow entertainment brands to measure the impact of their marketing? Can they see whether someone subscribed to a service or watched a show as a direct result of the marketing? 

‍Wall: We can measure cross-channel paid and owned media and tie that measurement to an outcome such as subscription or “tune-in.” Let's use Paramount as an example. You’ve got CBS and VH1 who are both airing the VMAs this year and then you have Paramount Plus that's probably streaming it the next day. How do you look across those channels in order to see what you spent and whether you drove people to CBS? Did you see a lift? You should be able to see that you spent this much money and then got this much for it. Did you increase reach and increase sales? If you’ve done that, the answer is yes, you as an entertainment marketer are a revenue generator.

‍Spotlight: As someone who has spent so much time in entertainment marketing, why is this so important to you? 

‍Wall: I really believe in this. I believe advertising can save the world, and I also believe content can save the world. And I've always believed that. When I started my own gay and lesbian marketing agency back in 2002, I believed that entertainment connects people and I still do. My mission back then was to help gay and lesbian people to see themselves on television. 

So I'm very adamant about how we get the content out there. If we get advertising right, not only do the publishers win, not only do the advertisers win, but the consumer wins. I think there's so much opportunity to make an industry change here, and if we don't do it now, I think we're stuck with this legacy, non-efficiency and non-innovation for another 20 years. I really encourage the industry to learn, reach out, test, challenge, be curious and be brave.